Integrated circuits often use counters to monitor the number of occurrences of an event of interest. For example, in an integrated circuit used in a switch or router, counters keep track of certain events, such as the total number of packets processed, the number of packets processed of a particular type, the number of packets processed of a particular length, and any number of other performance metrics. Counters count events, as they occur in a one to one fashion, such that when an event occurs, the counter is incremented.